How do the sages’ austerities produce fire?
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Question, how are the sages or how are those who are ascetics performing austerity able to generate fire when their austerity becomes very intense? Answer, the specific mechanism is subtle. It involves manipulation of the subtler aspects of the elements of Prakriti and those kind of changes are not accessible to our gross sensory organs and to the methods of modern science as we understand them today. But we can look at the broad principles.
So, for example, when the Bhagavatam repeatedly mentions this, say, when Dhruva performs austerity or when Hiranyakashipu performs austerity or even when Atri Rishi performs austerity, it is said that flames start coming from their body and those flames are what disturb various residents in various parts of the universe and therefore, they move and arrange to have whatever, have the ascetics stop the austerity and arrange to have whatever benedictions they want granted. So now, let's look at this step by step. What exactly is happening and why is it happening? So the first point is that Tapa, austerity, is generally understood to be a source of power.
We can experience this ourselves at a practical level. It's like if we have some energy, say, if we have the capacity to concentrate. Now if our concentration is disfocused, if we are thinking, if our mind is oscillating between five, six, ten, fifteen different things, then our capacity to get things done is limited.
We are not able to, if we are trying to study something, we are often not able to concentrate. Even if we are not able to understand, we are not able to assimilate. But if we are able to concentrate, then we are able to get things done much better, much faster.
So, just as we can consider our capacity to be attentive, our capacity to be concentrating, that when focused can enable us to do much more than what we would do otherwise. Similarly, we can look at this from the perspective of inner, not just inner attention, but inner intention, inner desire. So, austerity essentially means that a person withdraws from, takes the power of desire and instead of letting it get dissipated on many things, अनेक चित्तविभ्रान्तमोह जाल समावरत As Krishna talks about in the Bhagavad Gita, in the 16th chapter, when talking about people who are ungodly and uncontrolled, he says that their consciousness is played over many things and their desires get dissipated.
So, instead of that, if one draws one's desires within, rather not draws them, yes, one focuses them on one particular object and plans to get that object by that focused intention, then that can also generate power. Just as by our concentrating on one subject, withdrawing our consciousness from other things can help us to comprehend the subject. Similarly, our concentrating our intention by withdrawing it from everything else and focusing it on some particular thing, that also has tremendous power.
That's the first point. Second point is that there is the concept of fire within the human body and this is a different framework of looking at the body as compared to what is used by modern science. Modern science divides the body into its organs and the systems, the mechanisms by which those organs interact.
Now, certainly the organs are known to even other systems of thought, whether we look at the Ayurveda, which focuses on Kapha, Vata, Pitta or we look at the Chakra system, which is focused on Pranayam and which looks at the circulation of Prana. But there are organs, but the focus is not on the movement of chemicals and the balance and the interplay of chemicals as it is quite often in modern allopathy. There other elements are talked about and their motion is their location, their motion, their direction that has a lot of effect as is mentioned.
So now, within this, there is the fire within the human body that at one level we can understand as the fire of digestion, which the Ayurveda talks about. Now, modern allopathy may not talk about the fire literally, but we understand that the body has a temperature and if the person dies, the temperature goes down. So now, the temperature has to come from some source.
It may not be fire in the literal sense in which the fire burns outside, but this is a different kind of fire in the sense that the Vishnu Sahasranama says that there are seven different kinds of fires and all of them are based in, all of them are coming from, all of them are manifested by the power of Vishnu. Now, the fire which is there within the human body, one of its manifestations is the Jatra Agni. By the power of austerity, that fire gets activated and when that fire gets activated, then it gets triggered and as it gets triggered, as it moves on, as it starts burning more and more, then what is subtle starts manifesting at the gross level.
So, this is one way of understanding it that when one performs austerities, the focus of one's intention causes some changes within the inner mechanisms by which the body functions and the Tapa Agni, that is the fire of austerity, the fire of concentrated intention, kindles the fire within and that expresses itself from the subtle level to the gross level as a fire outside. That's the first point. Now, second point is also that we understand that this fire is also ultimately manifested by Krishna.
Krishna says, it is I who, through the digestive fire, through the digestive fire, I control the, I make sure that digestion takes place and enable people to digest food. So, now what exactly is Krishna stating through this? He's making the point that our digestion, we should not see it as independent or arbitrary, we should see it as connected with him in the form of it being manifested by his arrangement. So, when we connect with the higher powers of the universe, at that time, so it's not just that the person performing austerity is simply, say, concentrating one's intention, standing in a particular posture or something like that.
Along with that, usually there are some mantras which are being chanted and those mantras are meant to propitiate certain devatas. So, when the propitiation of those devatas happens, that also kindles the fire within and that fire blows forward. So, when, say, Atri or Dhruva or even Hiranyakashipu, Hiranyakashipu was not worshipping Vishnu, he was worshipping Brahma, but still he was worshipping a higher power, a higher being, a being far higher than him, and these higher beings have phenomenal powers.
So, the invocation of their names, the chanting of mantras for propitiating them also invokes the subtle elements and that's how the fire gets manifested. Now, Sri Prabhupada, in the purport to the Dhruva pastime, also mentions how when the Lord manifests in the heart, then the Lord, because He is supremely powerful, He is omnipotent, so His potency manifests through the person meditating on Him and that manifestation can also be inconceivable to our normal experience. So, in that sense, sometimes it may well be that Krishna manifests and that's how the potency, the burning intolerable fire can come along.
So, it happens at the level of the focused intention kindling the fire within to manifest from subtle level to the gross level. It can happen because of the propitiation of the devatas and the associated powers that are present within the mantras meant to invoke them which can cause the fire and the fire can also manifest because of the direct arrangement of the Supreme Lord for His specific purpose during the performance of some pastimes. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.